We’re not really city people. Small towns, mountains, beaches – that’s more our thing. But we have fallen in love with Singapore. Clean streets (the importation of chewing gum is forbidden!). Wide sidewalks. Green spaces. Colonial architecture competing with ultra-modern skyscrapers. A real melting pot of cultures and cuisines. And eating. That’s also our thing. Incredible street food served in clean and orderly “hawker centers” (the one in Little India maybe not so much). It’s really the food that brought us back this year. Last year we visited the touristy things – Riverwalk, Gardens By The Bay, Clark’s Quay, Fort Canning Park. This year we only had three locations on our list and they were all street food centers. Starting in the 70’s, the Singaporean government started moving the street food stalls off the street and into hawker centers, where they could be better regulated for hygiene and not block car and pedestrian traffic and take up valuable parking space.

Our first stop was the Maxwell Food Center in Chinatown. There were a ton of Chinese inspired dishes on offer here, but none so famous as Hainanese Chicken Rice. This is a fairly simple dish, as it’s name implies – sliced poached chicken served over steamed rice. But the beauty of the dish, and it’s attraction, is the flavorful broth that’s ladled over the top. Even Heather, who isn’t a ‘gravy’ fan, raved about the incredible flavor of the broth. Anthony Bourdain visited the Maxwell Food Center for his show and highlighted one of the stalls for their chicken rice dish. It’s easy to find – look for the big cardboard cutout of Bourdain and the long line. But several stalls offer the dish and it would be hard to believe that any one would be any less tasty. We also tried a dish of sliced pork over noodles and steamed dumplings filled with chicken. Fresh fruit juices and a cold beer afterwards made for a perfect, and inexpensive, evening.

Our second day took us up to Little India, and the Tekka Center food court. It was nearly impossible, seeing all the Indians and Bangladeshi people, the smell of curry in the air, and the chaos of the place, not to think we’d been transported to Delhi or Mumbai. First up was a serving of dosa – a fermented chick pea flour pancake accompanied by several flavorful condiments. Next we shared a meal of mutter paneer, cheese cubes in a curried sauce with peas, served with naan fresh from the tandoor oven.

Later on day two we walked to Lau Pa Sat, smack dab in the center of the financial district. We started with fresh juices and a vegetable noodle soup with wontons before moving outside to check out the numerous satay stalls which this food center is justly famous for. Sitting down at a table to enjoy a plate of chicken skewers cooked over a charcoal fire and served with peanut sauce and a cucumber salad, we watched as the vendors transformed a four lane roadway, which only minutes before had been filled with rush-hour traffic, into another eating area, setting up long tables and folding chairs to accommodate hundreds of additional diners. After filling up on satay, we strolled back to our hotel through Chinatown, happy with another visit to Singapore.

 

Next stop – Georgetown, Malaysia. Touted as the best street food city in all of south east Asia. Like Singapore, a melting pot of Malay, Chinese and Indian culture. Mosques, churches and Hindu temples all compete for space along it’s crowded and compact downtown streets. It’s certainly grittier than Singapore (heck – ANY city is grittier compared to Singapore). Along with street food, street art is an attraction here. Wandering along the streets and alleys, we stumble upon mixed-media murals – real swings, bikes and motorcycles incorporated into paintings of kids playing, riding or folks lined up for street food. Just blocks from our hotel, on Jalan Chulia, carts materialize starting at 6 pm. Woks are fired up and dishes of wan tan see – steaming noodles, topped with roast pork, steamed greens, wontons and a flavorful soya-based sauce are offered. Heather opted for the vegetarian char kway teow – flat noodles with egg, bean sprouts and spices similar to pad thai. Again, we ordered fresh fruit juices – papaya and guava this time. All for less then $4. Most days we walked the streets in the morning before the thermometer hit the mid-90’s. Then we would retreat to the air-conditioned comfort of our hotel during the middle of the day. As the sun dipped and the temperature retreated into the 80’s, we’d venture back out to find a comfortable cafe in an old renovated Chinese shop house for some happy hour beers and wine. When we tired of street food (how was that even possible?) we’d opt for a sit down meal. One night we strolled down the block from the hotel and found a sports bar/nightclub/Indian restaurant, where we sipped ice-cold Tiger beers and pomegranate mojitos before stuffing ourselves on delicious Indian dishes while watching retro music videos under a spinning disco ball. The final night we entered the Red Garden Food Center, just steps away from our hotel. Perusing the stalls set up around the perimeter of the indoor hall, we chose roast duck with rice and a chicken shawarma platter. Taking a seat at one of the dozens of tables filling the center of the cavernous space, a waiter quickly appeared for a drink order – fresh squeezed orange juice and Tiger beer, thank you very much. My roast duck breast was tender, juicy and flavorful, with crisp skin ($1.75). Heather’s Middle Eastern-inspired shawarma platter had shaved chicken, pita bread, fries, a creamy garlic sauce and more salad then the two of us could eat ($3.75). I love a place where duck is cheaper than chicken!

 

We did tear ourselves away from the delicious food in Georgetown one morning to visit Penang National Park (had to work off those extra calories). The park is home to the Dusky Leaf Monkey, a species we had never seen before. Chances of spotting them were slim, given the dry conditions and the high heat of the day. But we slogged through the three hour roundtrip hike that took us through rainforest to a secluded, and beautiful beach, and back to the park entrance station. Wouldn’t you know it –  returning to within a hundred yards of the entrance gate, we spied a troop of monkeys moving through the trees just above us. One female had a baby which is just about the cutest thing you’ve ever seen.